


Kiss Through Copper

by wilderswans



Series: Widomauk 30 Day NSFW Challenge [8]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (where all your dreams come true - got a deal for you!), Dirty Talk, Face-Sitting, Fantasy Skype Sex, Jester Knows, M/M, Yasha is over Molly's lovesick crisis, misuse of the Message cantrip, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 07:33:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15680874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilderswans/pseuds/wilderswans
Summary: “And then you just left,” Yasha says.(Day 8 of the 30 Day NSFW OTP challenge: Skype sex - it's Fantasy Skype Sex, cut me some slack)





	Kiss Through Copper

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for day 8 is skype sex so I get to misuse the Message cantrip! 
> 
> Listen I know most of it is talking but [gestures wildly] I backed them into an emotional corner last time and had to wrangle them out of it before they could get to any sort of hrrm-hrrm-hrrm. 
> 
> Thank you, now as ever, for reading and leaving comments+kudos if you are so inclined - each and every one warms the cockles of my queer little heart ♥

“And then you just left,” Yasha says. She’s entirely blank - Molly can’t tell what she’s thinking or if she’s silently judging him. Back at the circus, this weaponized neutrality was what shut down belligerent audience members or drunk rabblerousers who wanted to get in for free; now it just makes Molly feel twitchy.

He can only sigh, cheek squished against her thigh as her strong fingers card through his hair. It’s been five days and he can’t escape the expression on Caleb’s face, brow crinkled in confusion as Molly high-tailed it out of the room. He sees it on the backs of his eyes when he tries to sleep, and sees it anew every day when he avoids looking at Caleb.

There is a _slight_ possibility he fucked up. He knows Yasha’s waiting to hear it from him, though, so he sighs again. “And then I just left,” he confirms. “I left and I locked myself in the bathroom and had a bloody meltdown.”

Yasha continues to stroke through his hair, the solid weight of her arm against him a comfort. At least, it is, until she abandons his hair and pinches the tip of his ear. Molly yelps, trying to swat her hand away, but like a bulldog she persists.

“And you haven’t apologized?” Yasha asks him incredulously. “You haven’t even explained? In _five days_?”

“No, damn it, ow!” Molly tries to bat her hand again but she releases him and stands, leaving him and his throbbing ear in a miserable puddle on the floor.

“He’s going to want to hear from you,” Yasha says, crossing her arms over her chest. “You at least owe him that much.”

“I know,” Molly says. He gets a hand under, hoists himself up into a sitting position and stretches out his legs, which are starting to tingle from being cramped in one position for so long while he bitched and Yasha silently heard him out. He scrubs a hand through his hair, mussing it even further. “I _know_ , Yasha, but that’s the problem. I _can’t_. I think about bringing up how I feel and - look, I don’t _like_ not being able to speak what’s on my mind. Have you ever known me to shy away from something?”

Yasha doesn’t quite snort, but it’s a close thing, and Molly knows she understands. “Look,” he says, waving his hand. “In short, I don’t know how he’ll react and I don’t want to risk him reacting badly.”

“Either way,” she says, fixing him with an extremely unimpressed look. Out of everyone he’s met in his short life, she’s the only person who refuses to be impressed by the flash and glamour of him. He kind of loves her for it. “You tell him now, and maybe one of you is miserable. Or you never tell him, and we’re all miserable.”

Molly’s guts freeze in a flash. “All - _gods_ , it’s not that obvious, is it?”

“I’m not going to confirm or deny anything, but last night Jester did whisper at me to ask whether you two were going to pull your heads out of your asses and have totally hot make-up sex to get over whatever fight you’re having.” Yasha’s mouth twitches. “Her words, not mine.”

Molly groans. Everything was better when he was under the illusion he was having this ridiculous lovestruck meltdown in private, but apparently that’s impossible with the Mighty Nein. And now, even Yasha won’t give him the dignity of pretending that everything is fine.

But that’s not how Yasha operates, anyway. He doesn’t think he’d adore her quite as much if she let him get away with everything.

His best friend takes pity on him, and kneels to look him eye to mismatched eye, hands a firm weight on his shoulders. “Say you tell him. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“He bolts in the middle of the night,” Molly says immediately, because he’s weighed these options. He has weighed these options several times, and has always come to the same conclusions. “Or he stays but goes all distant and never speaks to me again, which is _worse_.”

And it is. The prospect of having Caleb near yet distant is infinitely worse than the idea of never seeing him again. How could he go back to pretending he’s not in love, now that he’s tasted the corners of Caleb’s smile and felt the warmth of him in the early morning?

But the thought of never seeing Caleb again? That’s not his favorite, either.

Yasha shakes her head, squeezing his shoulders. The massive weight of her is solid and he closes his eyes for a moment, glad that she is, at least for the moment, his strength. “What if things go all right?” she asks, gentle voice entirely at odds with the sheer strength of her hands on the shoulders of his coat. “What if he -”

But Molly shakes his head, cutting her off. He can’t imagine what it might be like if Caleb loves him back - at least not any more than he already has. The past five days have made him sick with wonderings and what-ifs, and the thought that Caleb could love him back terrifies him only slightly less than the thought of Caleb never speaking to him again.

Yasha sighs. “Either way, you need to fix this,” she says. “It’s been five days. You need to make a decision or your decision will be made for you.”

And damn, if she isn’t right. He scowls, _knowing_ she’s right and bristling at it. “I know,” he says. She leans in, bringing in with her the faint scent of rainstorm and worn leather, and brushes her lips against his forehead.

“I love you,” she says. “And no matter what happens - how he reacts, whatever happens between the two of you - I’ll be here.”

He closes his eyes at the soft pat of her hand against his tattooed cheek, before she stands and turns to walk away. With a soft click, she closes the door behind her, leaving Molly stretched out on the floor against the wall in the near-dark.

 _Damn_ , he thinks, with an inward sigh.

He suddenly misses Caleb with a devastating sharpness, like the stab of a knife between his ribs.

Of course, Yasha is right. He should go talk to Caleb - try to handle this like an adult. They’re both adults. They can deal with this, with Molly’s inconvenient outpouring of feelings. If Caleb doesn’t return them, Molly can just stamp them down and continue on. Maybe if he’s lucky, he can continue sleeping with Caleb in a friendly, non-romantic, no strings attached way. Something is, after all, better than nothing. He can handle that.

 _Liar_ , the cruel little part of his brain hiding towards the back hisses at him. He couldn’t handle that - hollowing himself of love just for the opportunity of maybe, possibly, kissing Caleb again.

He groans and none-too-gently bangs the back of his head against the wall, feeling the ache of it in his horns. He is so _fucked_.

“Mollymauk?” comes Caleb’s voice, close to his ear. It’s so intimate the flesh on the back of Molly’s neck prickles before he realizes Caleb’s not next to him, and jumps before he realizes Caleb is probably whispering into his little piece of copper wire from rooms away.

As if in confirmation of Molly’s thoughts Caleb continues, “You can reply to this message.”

Molly pulls himself together, despite the alluring tickle of Caleb’s soft voice against his ear. He has missed Caleb’s voice _so much_. “Hello, darling,” he says. “Where are you?”

“Ah - my and Nott’s room,” Caleb says. Molly blinks. It’s not terribly late in the evening, and he would have thought Caleb was downstairs with the rest of the group eating and drinking and carousing in the tavern.

He doesn’t voice this, however, and instead asks, “Are you all right?”

“ _Ja_ , I am fine,” Caleb says. Then he falls silent, and for several long seconds Molly can imagine him curled up alone on the rickety bed, holding the twist of copper wire to his mouth. His heart trembles with the urge to rise and go to him, but doesn’t feel he’d be especially welcome after five days of nothing after the last time they’d had sex.

“Are you all right?” Caleb asks at last. There’s another question, deeper beneath it, and Molly thinks he understands it despite it remaining silent and unspoken.

“Yes,” he responds immediately. “I’m all right.”

Then he feels a throb, as if Yasha is pinching his ear again, and he sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says, feeling foolish for speaking to the room at large instead of directly to Caleb’s face. He hopes the spell works like this - he doesn’t have copper wire and can’t cast the cantrip anyway, and he’s unsure if he can look Caleb in the face as he apologizes. “I shouldn’t have just...run out on you like that, after we - you know,” he finishes lamely.

There’s another pause, as if Caleb is considering. Then he says, very quiet, “As long as you are all right.”

Something in his voice doesn’t sit well with Molly. Is it - resignation? Sadness? Anger? _Fuck_ , he’s bungled this so badly. “It’s not because of you,” he blurts out, and then catches himself with a curse, because it really is because of Caleb, in a way, but mostly it's him and how he's reacted to it. “Fuck, I mean, it’s me, you didn’t do anything, but it’s not -”

He has to break off, running a hand through his hair and fairly buzzing with exasperation. He can’t blurt out that he’s in love with Caleb from three rooms away after five days of not speaking to him and avoiding his eyes, because that would be even more fucked up than this whole mess already is.

“I miss you,” he says at last, and hopes that Caleb can hear it through the wire. “I messed up, and I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” says Caleb after a brief, nerve-wracking pause. There’s an edge of caution to his voice that still doesn’t sit well with Molly, who leans further against the wall and closes his eyes against the dark room of the inn.

“I’m just. Not sure if I can tell you, yet. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s a lot, and _fuck_ , I’m not making any sense.” Molly bonks his head softly against the wall again.

This time the pause is long enough that Molly is sure that Caleb’s tossed the wire away, and mentally prepares himself for the possibility that Caleb will never speak to him again - through Message, or face to face. He hasn’t said anything damning but his heart is beating a frantic crescendo against his ribcage, as if he’s just excised it from his chest and laid it out, bloody and quivering, for Caleb to see and judge.

He’s just about given up and is preparing to leap out the window and flee into the dark streets when Caleb’s voice whispers into his ear once more. “You have never rushed me, Mollymauk, even when I have needed time.” he says. His voice is hushed beyond the spell, thoughtful. “I do not think it would be fair play of me to pressure you over this. If you need time as well.”

Molly releases his breath in a slow exhale. “Thank you, darling. I’m...not ready yet. I don’t know when I will be. But thank you.”

“All we have is time,” Caleb says wryly. Molly feels the corner of his mouth quirk, and while the weight in his chest like lead around his heart hasn’t disappeared, it has lightened. Caleb doesn’t hate him. Caleb still wants to talk to him.

Caleb _misses him_.

If he wasn’t paying attention to the silence, eager for anything else Caleb might say, he would miss the soft and sighing exhale Caleb breathes into his ear -a strange sensation without the warmth of breath on Molly’s skin to accompany it. “I am glad we had this conversation,” says Caleb, sounding more even, more like himself.

Molly drags his hands down his face, wanting to laugh with the sheer relief of this. “Me too,” he says. “And I truly am sorry.”

“ _Es ist alles gut_ ,” says Caleb. Molly can imagine the little wave of his hands to accompany the Zemnian. “But if you are feeling...a way about something, do not feel like you can’t share it with me, okay?”

Molly is gripped with the urge to laugh again, but for an entirely different reason this time. “Okay,” he says anyway. “No secrets. And I promise not to run away and avoid you again, too.”

“Thank you,” says Caleb. “Though Nott has said that if you do that again she’s putting an arrow in your throat.”

Molly swallows. He doesn’t doubt that Nott will absolutely do that, and more. “I’ll remember that.”

They lapse into silence, but it’s no longer chafing and uncomfortable. Molly closes his eyes, thinking of nothing in particular but the feeling of Caleb’s skin, the guarded brilliance of his eyes.

Fuck, he’s never been in love like this. He wants Caleb to talk to him again, unable to whisper into his own copper wire to open a conversation. If he got up and knocked on Caleb’s door he doesn’t know if he’d be immediately welcomed in.

By necessity of Message, Caleb breaks the silence. “So, ah,” he says. “How are you?”

Molly chuckles. He’s missed the endearing awkwardness so acutely it makes his heart clench. “Everything is peaches and cream over here,” he says, and it’s only a half-truth, which is good enough. “How about you?”

“Jester took it upon herself to slip a book into my bag when she thought I wasn’t paying attention,” Caleb says into Molly’s ear.

“What kind of book?” Molly asks cautiously, though he already has his suspicions.

Caleb is silent for a moment. Molly can imagine him weighing whether or not he should actually tell Molly. “It is...ah. It is more of a pamphlet, really,” he says.

“Caleb, darling,” Molly says. “I have it on reliable authority that Jester knows about us. Is that all right with you?”

There comes a slow exhale in his ear. “Well, the little book she gave me is called 'Top Ten Positions For Passionate Make-Up Sex,' and she has added helpful notes in the margins for tiefling anatomy so.... _ja_ , it is safe to say she knows.”

Molly closes his eyes and exhales through his nose. “But are you okay with that? I can have a quick word with her, if not.”

In the ensuing pause Molly imagines Caleb biting his bottom lip. Caleb is careful; he must be, for he has so much to contend with that Molly cannot help him shoulder. Whatever his response, Molly knows, he will gladly support what Caleb needs.

“Is it so bad?” Caleb says at last. “We will not get any measure of peace from Jester, but she is one less person we have to tiptoe around.”

“I’d like that,” Molly says, softly. “I’d like to not tiptoe.”

In reality, what he wants to say is _I want to be able to hold your hand in front of Jester no matter how she’ll crow at us_ , but that might be a bit much right now. Regardless, sneaking around behind the entire party’s back is exhausting - but Molly’s going to follow Caleb’s lead, here.

“I would like to not tiptoe either,” Caleb says, low and sweet in his candor. It makes a little plume of warmth curl in Molly’s stomach. “I would like to be able to -” he starts, and then falls silent.

“Caleb Widogast,” Molly says, trying to keep his delight from his voice, not wanting to overwhelm the dear wizard he is hopelessly in love with. “Were you going to say you wanted to kiss me in front of our dear compatriots?”

“Maybe not - in front of,” Caleb says, all in a rush. Molly can picture it now, the high color on his cheeks, the sweetness of him as he tries to surmount his bashfulness and lack of social graces. “But - around, certainly.”

“You may certainly kiss me around our friends,” Molly says, relieved to his core that kissing is still on the table. “Or in private. Or whenever you want, really. Whatever you like.”

Another stretch of silence, except this time Molly can hear the slow exhale of Caleb’s breathing against the wire. Finally he says, meek and hopeful as anything, “I would like a lot, Mollymauk.”

That makes two of them, then. “What are you wearing?” Molly asks, before he can help himself.

Caleb huffs a brief laugh in his ear. It makes him weak with tenderness. “What I always wear, Mollymauk. I am always wearing this -”

“No, darling,” Molly says, leaning his head against the wall and laughing helplessly. “If we were in one of your smutty books we’d have a proper exchange of dirty letters, and you’d say something like, ‘I am wearing my smallclothes and nothing else.’ It excites the imagination, yeah?”

Snorting, Caleb says, “Were we in one of my smutty books, we would have been naked thirty pages ago.”

“That is an idea,” Molly says, pleased as punch. He tilts his hips off the ground for a brief moment to begin wriggling his trousers down, struggling to get the tight fabric down the slight curve of his hips.

“Are you actually - getting naked?” Caleb asks into his ear, as Molly splays his legs and licks a broad stripe down his palm.

“Mmm,” Molly says. He’s done being articulate. He wishes, with a touch of desperation, that Caleb was in this room - he could stand to be fingered until he cries, until he’s beyond coherence with physical pleasure.

He wraps his hand around half-hard flesh but stops there. Half of him waits, breathless, for Caleb’s guidance.

“Mollymauk,” says Caleb, over Message. “I....I have been thinking a lot about the other day.”

Molly’s breath catches. There’s an apology ready on the tip of his tongue, yet one more for fucking up so horribly, but then Caleb’s saying, “What you were saying about - about sitting on my face -”

Arousal surges through his entire body; he groans and gives his cock a little tug. “Yes, darling, I meant it.”

A long, shaky exhale gusts in Molly’s ear through the cantrip and, ludicrously, it only makes him harder. “Did you?”

“Would you like that?” he replies, now stroking himself in earnest. It’s not as good as it would be if Caleb was actually here, breath hot against his skin and words low in his ear, but it’s the next best thing after five days being starved of Caleb’s voice.

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb says, eager when Molly would expect him to be hesitant and blushing. As he strokes himself, Molly suspects Caleb is in a similar state. “I have - I have thought about it a lot.”

Molly groans, overcome with visions of Caleb touching himself, bringing himself off to the thought of Molly perched above him, thighs trembling and tail twitching as Caleb eats him out. “We’ll - _oh_ , we’ll have to do that soon,” he says.

“I want to make it good for you,” Caleb says, so earnest and sweet that Molly’s heart damn near stops as it’s thumping wildly in his chest. “ _Scheisse_ , Molly - I want you to come from how good it is, I want to feel you as you do -”

Molly groans out loud at that, hoping Caleb can hear his reaction. “Yes, Caleb, I want it to, you’re going to be so good.” He pants, slightly out of breath as his thumb catches the gathering slick at the head of his cock, smearing it down the throbbing length of him on the downstroke.

They lapse into silence but it’s kind of nice, knowing that Caleb is too occupied by his own pleasure to keep talking. Molly thrusts up into his fist, closing his eyes against the searing mental images - his thighs splayed around Caleb’s face, the wet and obscene sounds Caleb’s mouth would make against him. He wonders if he could get Caleb to tug, very gently, on his tail as he eats him out.

Then he thinks about Caleb not bothering to be gentle at all, just hauling him up, spreading him open and _taking_ , and the pleasure burns white-hot within him as he comes all over his fist, moaning shamelessly into the empty room. It’s embarassing, how quickly he’s come, but five days - five emotionally-fraught days where he hasn’t even brought himself off to relieve some of the tension - have worn his stamina thin.

Moments later, as his chest is still heaving, Caleb’s voice murmurs into his ear again. “Mollymauk,” he says through the Message, sounding wrung-out with pleasure.

“I’m here,” Molly says, closing his eyes and letting his hand, sticky with his own spend, fall to his side. Warmth sweeps through him as he thinks of Caleb, just a few rooms away, hand down his trousers and high color in his cheeks, holding the little copper wire to his mouth with trembling hands.

“I -” Caleb swallows. “I need you. _Bitte_ , Mollymauk, please -”

In a flash Molly is on his feet, tucking himself back into his pants and wiping his hand on a spare handkerchief tucked into his coat pocket. He bursts out of his room, nearly tripping over himself in his haste, oblivious to the laughter and voices drifting up from the stairwell as he races to Caleb’s door.

Heart in his throat, he knocks.


End file.
